Hi,
I’ve come across people who claim that some people aren’t able to feel bodily pain - and also, these people have short life-expectancies - due to their lack of awareness that their body is being harmed.
I was wondering what the medical term for this condition is so that I can search for more information about it. Thanks. Also, can that condition involve them sensing heat and touch, but not pain on their skin or in their internal organs/head, etc?
Congenital analgesia.
isn’t congenital meaning ‘present at birth’?
I am about as far from being a doctor as you can get while still knowing that your heart is an important body part, but could it not also be Riley-Day syndrome?
Yes, congential means present from birth. A congenitally blind person, for example, has never seen.
Is it possible to have a similar condition that isn’t present from birth - i.e. caused by brain damage? If so, what is that called? Why don’t they find things painful? Are their “c-fibers” not working or something?
I’m not a medical expert, but I woulda guessed the answer was DRUNK.
It can happen, at least over portions of the body, as a result of brain damage. My father, as a result of a medular stroke, has lost pain and temperature sensation over a significant portion of his right side. This is a rather different sort of state from the congenital condition since he also has some areas of total numbness. Weirdly, as he has been recovering he has started to feel “a completely indescribable sensation” that he has come to recognize as replacing pain and extreme heat over some of the affected area.
As I understand it, that is how leprosy works. Your body parts don’t actually fall off from the disease…you hurt yourself without knowing it and lose fingers (or damage them to the point where you need to amputate).
Maybe he is sensing a “pain signal” without having an urge to avoid it. (I think that’s what makes pain unpleasant - we are naturally compelled to want to avoid it)
When I was 4 years old I fell down a steep staircase at the Victorian house where we lived and sprained my ankle. I can still remember doing it and how I landed.
Back in 1966 they didn’t fuss with precautionary neck braces or spinal boards.
On that day I used up my entire lifetimes allocation of good luck.
When I was 14 years old (1976) it became apparent that my sense of pain no longer worked.
When I was 30 I was MRI scanned and it transpired that I had fractured my neck when I was 4 years old in the fall, it had set itself as best it could and as I aged the misalignment of the 4th and 5th vertibrae had and was still fraying through part of my spinal cord.
My lack of pain sensation was because the wiring was effectively shorted out and disconnected. My brain, apparently confused by the signals, had stopped taking notice of my entire pain system. Basically it has taken a hammer to the system rather like one would to a faulty smoke alarm that won’t shut up giving false alarms.
How it all works was explained to me is as follows:
We, and all other higher life forms on this planet, have 5 seperate nervous systems. These are autonomic, motor control, coordination, sensory and pain.
There are various afflictions, dieseases, etc. that affect, damage or destroy each of these systems either by attacking the areas of the brain overseeing the system or by attacking the nervous system itself. Also some chemicals, such as millitary nerve gases, are specifically designed to confuse or react with one particular system.
The pain system is extremely ancient and primitive. It is wired entirely seperately from the more advanced sensory system. A cut, burn or broken bone feels exactly the same, as far as the pain system is concerned. The brain uses the sensory system and direct observation by the eyes, ears, conciousness and recent events to determine the exact nature of the damage being flagged up.
I still have a sensory system though progressive spinal damage is now working its way through this and I now suffer occasional attacks of neurosematic aches in the same way amputees feel ghost aches from missing limbs.
There are some advantages to not being able to feel pain such as visits to the dentist. I had a root canal done in just 3 minutes because I didn’t need anasthetic.
I’ve also never lost a fight in my life and the look on a hostile’s face when they realise that their best and hardest punch had no effect is priceless. I have avoided fights since July 1984 as I tend to forget my assailant can feel pain and used to be over the top. I found that breaking their fingers always ended the fight (old British Army trick).
I managed to hide my condition long enough to serve in the British Army as a teenager right up until I had an accident that saw me in hospital and somebody read my medical records.
Injuries I’ve picked up over the years:
2nd degree burn right fore finger after accidentally being seared by a piece of red hot metal in a school metalwork lesson when I was 14 (1976). This was when I first discovered that Icouldn’t feel pain as I can remember looking at the still smoking flesh and thinking that it should be hurting like hell but wasn’t. Instead it was itching like hell and I wanted to scratch it. The teacher thought otherwise…
Broken right thumb after punching a hostile in the forehead at school when I was 15. He suffered concussion as I hit him extremely hard and he went down like a sack of s**t.
I served in the Army with this injury and it took 7 years and a severly torn tendon through loss of the capsule plus X-Rays to discover the injury. My right thumb stopped working and I required 2 hours of corrective surgury plus a bone graft to fix the damage.
Gunshot wound right ankle / foot after a TA Army member forgot what a safety catch is for on a 0.22" Webley target rifle and accidentally shot me at a range of about a yard / metre . As I could see the tail of the bullet sticking out of my skin (it had splated on the bone like a pop rivet) I found a pair of pliers and pulled it out myself.
R.F. Burn to tips of fingers on right hand in 1992.
Broken right wrist most likely done when I attempted to jump a ditch in a field with a motorcycle outfit. This took 2 years to spot and the injury set itself badly. It has excess bone growth and misalignment. The specialist had a look at it 2 years ago and said that it needs correcting and to arrange something at my convienience.
Permanently dislocated left collar bone. It took 9 weeks to realise that it was adrift and I can only specuate as to when I did it.
I suspect that I broke one of my toes sometime during the past 10 years.
Countless minor burns, scalds, cuts, etc.
I’ve also had a carteledge fail in my right knee, back in 1990, and wasn’t aware of it until my leg started to clunk loudly as I walked. I spent a few days in a local hospital and when they opened up the knee it just fell out. The doctors were amazed that anybody could function like that without feeling any agony as the pain should have been unbearable for a “mortal”.
A few hours after coming back around on the ward I became bored and wanted to walk around. The nurses protested and summond the matron who warned me that if I attempted to leave my bed again she would personally break my other leg!!
This attracted the interest of the ward doctors, including the surgeon who had operated on me. I had a hour long medical interview with a junior doctor who had heard about people who could not feel pain and wanted to know more.
Over the years I’ve had to learn to interpret my injuries through my sensory system, which is now also failing in parts. 6 years ago I lost the ability to feel body temperature so now I could possibly run around naked in a blizzard in Antartica and it would apparently feel like room temperature throughout the experience.
As feeling the temperature of something was part of my burn / scald avoidance regime some taken for grated everyday tasks have now become problematic. When I take a shower or bath I have to taste the water to see if it is too hot or too cold. On the plus side I can take cold showers or baths and save on the cost of heating the water…
Cooking is also hazardous but fortunately, being a man, means that I can avoid the kitchen accept to collect food. I have to be told that a plate is very hot.
Burns and scalds feel like someone has injected itching powder under my skin and I will scrath away at the damaged area, which just makes it itch more. I have found that rubbing vigorously with a sterile cloth will relieve the itching without further damaging the damaged area.
Falls and knocks require some post accident self examination.
I feel the impact forces and then that’s it.
Injections feel unpleasant as I can actually feel the fluids spreading out under my skin…
People who cannot feel pain cannot be clumsy, careless or clutzes. I am very aware of exactly where my hands are and all my limbs, especially during potentially hazardous actions. I seriously have to watch what I am doing.
I ride motorcycles and even drag raced them once.
Being unable to feel pain has made me what I am today and I would not want to have the system restored even if it was possible. I feel stronger without it and after seeing how the pain feeling folks of the world suffer in fear of neccessary actions and events such as visiting the dentist, operations, etc. prefer not to be handicapped by feeling pain or held back by the fear of feeling it.
My condition is what makes me unaffraid of the world and all the normal things most people fear.
However it is easy for a blind man to not be affraid of the darkness.